Sunday Morning Line: More stories from latest MISD Legends

Published 1:02 pm, Saturday, October 20, 2012

This and that as I had to dig deep to re-energize my refereeing skills on Saturday:

One of the best parts of my job, OK the best, is to be able to do stories on people, games or teams that are of a historical nature.

Those kind of stories have always intrigued me because when you start working on them conducting interviews and research, you find out so much more than you every would've thought. Plus, you end up with more information than you could ever use in certain number of words or inches.

I experienced that over the last few weeks as I interviewed people for the biographies for the MISD Athletics Hall of Legends and today's story on Wahoo McDaniel.

Here's a few of those I was able to unearth in my conversations.

N The stories I was told from the people I interviewed for McDaniel's story was numerous, and I don't think I can recount them all. But there were two that stood out that didn't make it into today's story.

McDaniel's longtime friend and fellow pro wrestler Dory Funk Jr., said not only was McDaniel a major box office attraction but his competitors loved working with him. And if McDaniel was wrestling today, "He'd be in demand."

Funk said the head dress was McDaniel's idea, but he related a story where one year his father, Dory Funk Sr., asked him to cut his hair into a Mohawk.

The next year, though, McDaniel essentially refused, with Funk saying he said, "(Darn) it, I want to grow my hair like Ed McDaniel."

Another one that stood out was former Abilene High football player David Bourland saying in the mid-1960s he received a call from McDaniel when he was in town for a wrestling match, asking him why they couldn't buy beer in Abilene. Bourland informed him it was a dry town.

McDaniel then asked Bourland to find some beer, and come to that night's match with one of his former Oklahoma teammates Dick Carpenter. Bourland said McDaniel took him in the back and he was able to watch match preparations, and when the night was over they swapped stories about their days on the gridiron in West Texas.

Even at 74 years old, Bourland is still appreciative that McDaniel remembered him.

"He was a great guy, and I really did appreciate him calling me," Bourland said.

N Through my years here I've been able to find out a little more about former Lee baseball coach Ernie Johnson, but the one thing that keeps coming up was how good of a football coach he was. Johnson was an assistant football coach at Lee, and former Rebel coach Spike Dykes said after he gave him a scouting report for a game, he told Johnson that he might be a better football coach than baseball coach.

"I think I made him mad," Dykes said with a laugh.

N I have always heard about how important James E. "Doc" Dodson was during his years at Midland High, but what I didn't know is he was essentially a trailblazer in the late 1950s and early 1960s in West Texas. He was one of the few licensed trainers in West Texas in those years, and he evened earned a trip to Munich to work at the Olympics in 1972.

Dodson said he and the other trainers helped give physicals to some of the Israeli athletes, and he said it's even hard 40 years later to think about those dark days at the Olympics.

But he added some of his best times in Munich was being able to work with Mark Spitz, who won seven gold medals that year in swimming.

N Keith Bishop said Friday night was his first Lee game since he left, and he was more than looking forward to the opportunity to see his old school play again. Bishop not only was a standout football player, but also a great baseball player as a pitcher.

What's interesting about Bishop also was the fact that he played on a team that had a handful of Division I football players, including Junior Miller and David Sledge, who went on to a successful career at Baylor.

His last three years in the DEA were spent in Afghanistan, and after hearing all he accomplished with the agency during his tenure there, it only makes me have more respect for him.

N Now back to the present. Lee's win on Friday against Midland High puts it in a great position for the rest of the season to make the playoffs. The Rebels likely will get in by winning one of their next three games, but I'm sure that they don't want to have to worry about tiebreaker scenarios this year.

For Midland High, Friday's loss will be tough to take but one good thing was Odessa Permian's win against San Angelo Central on Friday puts the Bulldogs back in the hunt with three weeks left. And MHS has Lubbock Coronado, Odessa High and Abilene High left on the schedule, and if they can win two of those three the Bulldogs could be in a tie and have enough points to get in if Central and Permian are also involved in that tie.

It's going to be an interesting next three weeks.

N Also Olympic diver Troy Dumais will be in Midland on Monday and Tuesday at City of Midland Aquatics to do some coaching this week. So if you get a chance on Monday afternoon, you might want to go meet him and he will be signing some autographs as well.

N And finally, football season is winding down but I don't think we're actually going to see any football weather this year.